Friday, June 5, 2015

7 Quick Takes: The Good Enough Edition

Wow. It's been a really, really long time since I have done a set of quick takes. I mean to do it almost every week. I keep a little list of things that could be quick takes. I write and edit them but don't quite finish, because I'm not quite satisfied...they're not quite right...then life happens, and I usually just manage to get five minutes of writing done early Friday morning and have to call that "enough." It's not really enough. It's just all there is, sometimes.

I'm kind of frustrated about that. I need to just let them be Good Enough Quick Takes and hit publish and let it go.

Today, I'm not dwelling on the frustration, though. Because Good Enough 7 Quick Takes! And Friday! And maybe a teensy bit of non-rain over there in the corner of the sky? Dare we hope?

This guy would like to point out that his mother forgot to take the monthly picture with the sticker again. Again. Because he's the fourth baby, he says. You know what, though? He's the first baby to even have any stinking stickers for each of his first twelve months. (He can thank his grandma for those.)

Anyway, he's ten months old this week! And he's crawling. The world is about to be very, very different for his older siblings, who have been warned, over and over, that babies like to eat Playmobil. And Littlest Pet Shop. And whatever other tiny choking hazards they have lying around the floors of their not-vacuumed-often-enough bedrooms.

I predict some medieval Playmobil weaponry will be the first thing swallowed. Anyone want to start a pool?

In other Felix news, his last checkup revealed that his head in in the 100th percentile for size. All our kids have big heads, but this one consistently tops the charts. He's also been having stomach issues, and his doctor suggested that I limit dairy to see if it helps. I haven't eaten dairy for a month now, and I'm not sure there has been any improvement. I hear it takes a while for dairy to get completely out of our systems, so maybe it just hasn't been long enough...but I'm aware that if I call and tell them it isn't helping, they might suggest we go gluten free. This is hard- I like ice cream so much that an ice cream maker was my birthday present last year- but least I can still have sorbet. I've been really missing George's pizza, which is fantastic. This week, he brought me some non-dairy "cheese" (the first ingredient is water!). Vegan cheese is not tasty, but if I don't pile it on, I can almost pretend it is real pizza (and if I don't look at or smell the other people's pizza with the melted feta and cheddar and other goodness on top).

Gluten free, though, would be really, really difficult.

I have much respect for all of you who are parenting people with food sensitivities. This is our first time dealing with any of this. If it helps, it will definitely be worth it, of course- but it's hard to keep doing it when we aren't really seeing any improvement yet.

Garden
update: We have some things starting to come up: carrots, lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, beans, some herbs, some strawberries and some melons. I had planned to expand our raised beds this year, but ended up deciding that I have enough going on and should stick with what we already have. (What is this feeling of deciding not to take on more than I can handle? I'm not sure, because it's so out of character...I will let you know how it goes.)

In all the flowerbeds, there has been weeding galore to keep everyone (mostly me) busy. It's hard to motivate small kids to weed gardens. I remember my grandma paying us to pull weeds, and even as a seven year old, I felt like the pay was not enough to convince me to sit on my knees in the dirt and rip out tiny clumps of clover. Last week, I dug out a corner of the flowerbed under
the girls' window where I once had a rosebush that shriveled up a couple of years ago. We always intended to plant
another one there for the child we lost. When I uprooted the weeds and moved the dried up stuff that had accumulated there, I found the rosebush still growing
there, thriving, and with two buds on it about to bloom. It felt like a
small miracle.

In the vegetable raised beds, I put a chalkboard with space for the kids to update when we make our garden observations. Sam is doing some garden journaling using printable pages from Cathy James' new book, The Garden Classroom,
which has lots of good activities and really lovely pictures. I'm hoping to post a book list of garden books we're loving next week.

School update: Instead of a formal test, I scheduled a local evaluator to come to meet with us. She talked with Sam, reviewed his work, appreciatively watched him demonstrate his bike riding skills in the driveway and determined that Sam has made
adequate academic progress for first grade. The competitive person in me wants him to
have made amazing progress in all areas and be ahead of everyone else.
That's why this was good for me. It's not always about being the very very best you can possibly be. Sometimes, gentle progress is all we need.

Since she came, it feels like summer should be here. I'm having trouble motivating myself to do anything schoolish. Fortunately, this place is like a learning laboratory all the time, and Sam keeps things going with his multiple projects without my needing to prod him.

Currently on his project table: the rock project (ongoing), a Playmobil star wars stop motion film, an Ancient Egyptian tomb model/diorama looking thing with paintings on the walls, and a paper/cardboard model of the Parthenon.

It feels like it's been raining all week, every day, all day long. This doesn't necessarily keep us inside, but it made me realize just how much time we've been
spending outside recently. Our house isn't big, some people who live here have energy levels that are above average, and outside is like another room
for us. When we have to stay in, it feels a bit cramped.

Being in such close quarters made me realize how much I have not been
engaging with them as they play. If they are happily occupied together, I usually find something else to do- fold clothes, unload the dishwasher, get dinner started, etc. No, I don't have to play with them, and
they don't need me to...but I took the opportunity this week to relax a bit and just hang out with them while they were playing. It was really good for our relationship.

It was not as good for the state of my house. But hey- it's Friday! I have all weekend to scale that mountain of laundry that I haven't folded, right?

Finally, can you guess what happens when your driver's side window won't go down and you have to have the van inspected and they don't have the part to fix it and you have to have the van because you can't cancel your kids' big trip with their cousins to Dinosaurland?

You get a rejection sticker!

It's only pending the arrival of the part, of course, and I could have changed our plans with my sister and her kids. That would have made the week a lot more difficult, since this trip was much anticipated. I gritted my teeth and drove the van with a rejection sticker. It wasn't as bad as I thought...the sticker was white and small on the windshield, not a huge red poster with flashing neon lights around it as I had expected.